Greg Kumparak

Greg started at TechCrunch in May of 2008. He lead TechCrunch's sister site MobileCrunch as editor until AOL acquired the company in 2010, at which point the editors of TechCrunch's four main sites (TechCrunch, CrunchGear, MobileCrunch, TechCrunch UK) merged the sites under one domain.

Best known for his gadget coverage, Kumparak has broken hundreds of stories within the space — unearthing details on everything from abandoned Samsung smartphone prototypes to new Apple devices. He's also one of the Internet's most prolific "live bloggers", having reported from the scene at dozens of international events for live audiences in the hundreds of thousands.

He was one of the earliest writers to highlight and report on a number of companies that have since become "unicorns" (reaching a valuation of $1B or more), including Zenefits and Twilio.

Kumparak is a frequent guest on TechCrunch's Gadget, Apple, and Android podcasts, and often appears on stage as an interviewer or judge at TechCrunch's meetups and Disrupt conferences.

In 2012, Greg was featured on the BBC, Wired, Mashable, Engadget and many other outlets for a side project he called the "tARdis", or the Augmented Reality TARDIS. By combining augmented reality with a handmade physical model, Greg was able to replicate the otherwise physically impossible "bigger on the inside" visual effect that commonly appears on television's Doctor Who series.

Latest from Greg Kumparak

Back at Google I/O in May, Google announced “Android M”, the latest version of its Android operating system. Almost immediately, they released a preview build for developers to tinker with. It was a bit buggy, sure — but it let developers test their apps and get to know the new OS before everyone else got their hands on it.
Today, Google is taking a second swing with the… Read More

As announced at WWDC last month, Apple is making a beta of its newly updated mobile operating system, iOS 9, available to the general public for testing starting today, alongside the beta version of OS X El Capitan, its updated desktop OS.
The iOS 9 beta build will allow early adopters to try out upcoming features, including new apps like News and a refreshed Notes, transit directions in… Read More

Since about 10 seconds after Google launched its do-it-yourself Cardboard virtual reality headset, other companies have been selling pre-made clones — and Google is totally fine with that.
The catch: many of the clones cost upwards of $20-30 bucks, and that’s before shipping. Paying that much for what is essentially a piece of cardboard can feel a bit silly. Looking to capitalize… Read More

Here’s a wonderfully neat project to perhaps spark some creativity as we head into this holiday weekend: the 3D printed Zoetrope.
Take the concept of a flipbook — a series of frames displayed quickly to trick your brain into seeing an animation — and make it 3D, swapping out the still images for sculptures. Toss in a spinning platter and a strobe light (with the strobe… Read More

For the past month or so, the general thinking around the rumor mill has been that BlackBerry is working on an Android phone. If you can’t beat’em, join’em, right?
Now we’ve got a rough idea of what their first Android handset might look like.
Posted by the endlessly resourceful Evan Blass (aka evleaks), the photo shows a device that appears to have curves on both halves… Read More

Happy Friday of a long weekend, everyone!
To celebrate America’s Independence Day, we’ve chosen some extra fun topics for this week’s episode of the TechCrunch Gadgets Podcast. Lexus teased out a new hoverboard this week, because the world clearly isn’t weird enough yet. Anki is preparing to ship its second-generation robotic track cars very soon. And Bowling Central… Read More

It’s the eve of Apple Music, which launches tomorrow, and all through the house, not a creature was withholding their content, not even a Taylor Swift. Also, Force Touch is basically a lock for iPhone 6/6 Plus S this fall, according to a new report from Bloomberg that says production on devices with the tech has begun.
Apple Music arrives with iOS 8.4 at 8 AM PT tomorrow, and despite… Read More

One of Android Wear’s bigger bulletpoints over Apple’s Watch: it can run totally custom third party watch faces. You can be damned sure Google is going to play that card hard until Apple gets around to supporting it themselves.
This morning, Google is lettin’ loose a big bundle of new watch faces in partnership with 17 mega brands. Hello Kitty! Angry Birds! And… a… Read More

The E3 gaming conference was last week.
We didn’t actually go, but we watched from afar and soaked up all the latest that the gaming world has to offer. John’s in Poland, but Greg, Matt and Darrell were all thrilled to chat up the new Oculus controllers, the latest games, and the future of VR gaming.
I was thrilled to get work done while they chatted.
This week’s episode… Read More

Remember when Nest bought Dropcam? That first fruits of that purchase are finally dropping today: Nest has just announced the Nest Cam, an oh-so-Dropcam like security solution.
At first glance, the Nest Cam looks like the Dropcam that we all already know. At second glance… it… still looks like a Dropcam. It’s a bit more slim and its curves are a bit curvier — but the… Read More

It’s been a while since we’ve heard much from Nest — they bought Dropcam, then went a bit quiet.
Today, they’re breaking the silence at a press conference in San Francisco. The first new product out of the gate: a second generation of its smoke alarm, the Nest Protect. Read More

AHHHHHHHH.
I feel like I’ve been waiting years for this. The first real footage of Star Wars Battlefront — an EA-made sequel to the wonderful first person shooter of the same name that LucasArts (RIP) made back in 2004 — just dropped at E3. Read More

This week’s AppleCast is actually last week’s, and it’s us recapping the WWDC announcements, including iOS 9, OS X 10.11 El Capitan, Apple Music and watchOS 2. We also dive a little more deeply into 10.11 now that we’ve had some time with it.
We cover the watchOS 2 pending updates in some detail, too, and specifically address the new Time Travel and Complications… Read More

You probably don’t always like/share/comment on the stuff that pops up in your Facebook feed, even if it’s something you care to see. Take, for example, a breaking news items about an earthquake on the other side of the world — you’d probably feel weird hitting a button labeled “Like” on that one, and you might not have anything to say… but that… Read More

Do you like Star Wars? Do you like virtual reality? The venn diagram of those two fan bases presumably has quite the overlap — and yet, there hasn’t been much official Star Wars VR stuff to date.
That’s about to change. Read More

This year’s Worldwide Developer Conference keynote kicks off later today at 10 AM PT at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and we’ll be there live to fill you in on all the action as it happens. Will Apple debut its on-demand streaming music service? What does a native Apple Watch app look like? What’s in store for the future of iOS and OS X? All will be revealed… Read More

The Apple WWDC 2015 keynote is just days away, so we discuss what you can expect to see at that special presentation. Basically it’s going to be a whole lotto iOS 9 and OS X 10.11, with a healthy heaping of Apple Watch and Watch OS thrown in. Beyond that, there are probably a few surprises in store.
We go into detail about what we expect to see regarding Proactive, Home and HomeKit… Read More

It’s been rumored for weeks, but consider it mostly official: Google is launching a photo service separate of Google+.
We just heard it straight from the horse’s mouth while walking the halls of Google I/O, though I don’t think we were supposed to hear it just yet. It’ll be announced during Google’s I/O keynote, scheduled to start in an hour.
Here’s what… Read More

Google’s I/O developer conference for 2015 kicks off today, with a keynote that begins at 9:30 AM PT. Google typically uses this to make big, splashy announcements about its software platforms and products, and to go into additional detail about what the changes mean to developers especially.
We have a special team of highly talented TechCrunch individuals at the event, providing… Read More

Remember those absolutely insane Wolverine claws from last year? The ones that were preeeetty much guaranteed to take someone’s eye out?
The latest take on the ever-evolving DIY Wolverine Claw concept (sadly?) makes the whole thing a bit less absurdly dangerous, but brings an awesome twist into the mix: flex your arms, and the claws auto extend.
So, how do the claws know when… Read More